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The quango, funded by £22 million of taxpayers’ money, is tasked with protecting the rights of women, ethnic minorities and the disabled.

Stats released under freedom of information laws also show disabled people earn an average £36,719 – about £5,000 less than non-disabled staff.

The annual average salary for female staff in 2016-17 was £41,778, while men were paid £39,430.

Tory MP Philip Davies said: “Given the EHRC is given taxpayers’ money to stamp out pay gaps across the country and have this as a key priority, it is clearly embarrassing for them that this is something they cannot even manage themselves.

“Perhaps they should be getting their own house in order before lecturing others or maybe they should be abolished before they do even more damage to the cause of equality in the UK.”

But the Commission insisted the figures give a distorted picture of overall pay levels, which were “broadly the same”.

A spokesman said: “The EHRC pays equal pay for equal value work, complies fully with both our own guidance and the law, and carries out regular audits to ensure fairness.

“We compare very well with the national average and other public bodies in respect of the gender, race and disability pay gap.

“We are a very small organisation, so it only takes one or two staff of a particular background at a more senior level to skew the figures. To infer this is somehow down to discrimination or poor practice is grossly misleading.”